[Discussion] European Politics Discussion

Ireland is reviewing security around the seat of government after aggressive protests in Dublin that trapped lawmakers, ended with 13 arrests, and were condemned by the country’s leadership as “wrong” and “fascist-like”.

The Oireachtas, Ireland’s legislature, was put into a virtual lockdown for hours on Wednesday by a small but abusive group of about 200 people.

The protesters threatened staff and journalists, and erected a mock gallows covered with photos of politicians from across the spectrum.

The crowd was apparently united not so much by a cause – their messages included Covid conspiracy theories, anti-immigration messages and attacks on transgender rights – as by a willingness to use aggression in a bid to shut down the heart of Ireland’s democracy.

Racist abuse was hurled at people trying to get to work along roads blockaded by the protesters. Two women had plastic bags of urine thrown at them, the Irish Times reported. One aide said she had a phone stolen.

Several legislators were trapped in a car park at one point, including the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, and Paul Kehoe, Fine Gael’s education spokesperson.

On Thursday, the tánaiste, or deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, described the personal abuse directed at lawmakers and their staff as “absolutely vile”, and said some of the behaviour was “fascist-like”, Irish media reported.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who is in Miami to open a new consulate, said the incident was dangerous, particularly at a time of rising threats to politicians and ministers across Ireland.

“What I saw happening outside Leinster House was not a peaceful protest. There was violence, there was intimidation and that was wrong,” he said.

The parliament in Greece recently approved a new labor law that introduces a six-day working week and flexible working hours despite the protests of opposition parties and trade unions.

A potential max of 78 work hours per week...

slazev wrote:

The parliament in Greece recently approved a new labor law that introduces a six-day working week and flexible working hours despite the protests of opposition parties and trade unions.

A potential max of 78 work hours per week...

What's the nicest way to say "from everything I've read about Greece, they can write a law but nobody's going to follow it."

Wasn't there some report that like a solid 40% of the country just doesn't pay their taxes?

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden’s prime minister on Thursday said that he’s summoned the head of the military to discuss how the armed forces can help police deal with an unprecedented crime wave that has shocked the country with almost daily shootings and bombings.

Getting the military involved in crime-fighting would be a highly unusual step for Sweden, underscoring the severity of the gang violence that has claimed a dozen lives across the country this month, including teenagers and innocent bystanders.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that he would meet with the armed forces’ supreme commander and the national police commissioner on Friday to explore “how the armed forces can help police in their work against the criminal gangs.”

It wasn’t immediately clear in what capacity the military would get involved, but previous proposals have focused on soldiers taking over protection duties from police to free up more resources for crime-fighting.

“Sweden has never before seen anything like this,” Kristersson said in a televised speech to the nation. “No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this.”

Sweden has grappled with gang violence for years, but the surge in shootings and bombings in September has been exceptional. Three people were killed overnight in separate attacks with suspected links to criminal gangs, which often recruit teenagers in socially disadvantaged immigrant neighborhoods to carry out hits.

One of the victims was a woman in her 20s who died in an explosion in Uppsala, north of Stockholm. Swedish media said she was likely not the intended target of the attack.

Newspaper Dagens Nyheter said an 18-year-old rapper was killed late Wednesday in a shooting outside a sports complex on the outskirts of Stockholm.

More than 60 people died in shootings last year in Sweden, the highest figure on record. This year is on track to be the same or worse. Swedish media have linked the latest surge in violence to a feud between rival factions of a criminal gang known as the Foxtrot network.

Kosovo has accused Serbia of being behind a paramilitary group which ambushed a police patrol and clashed with Kosovan forces on Sunday.

The authorities in Pristina displayed an array of modern weaponry they said the group was using, including two Serbian-made armoured cars and a grenade launcher, alongside a document allegedly showing the grenade launcher, made by the Zastava arms company, had been supplied by the Serbian army.

The Kosovan government also claimed that the group’s leader was a prominent Kosovo Serb politician loyal to the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, and that one of three paramilitary fighters killed on Sunday was a former bodyguard of Aleksandar Vulin, the Serbian intelligence chief sanctioned by the US in July for corruption.

“This group came from Serbia, they are trained in Serbia, financed by them and also equipped by the army of Serbia and its police,” Xhelal Sveçla, the Kosovan interior minister, told the Guardian.

“Some of the weapons were taken from the warehouses of the army and handed over to terrorists who came into Kosovo from Serbia.”

Sveçla said his ministry had shared the evidence with western embassies and agencies.

“What they wanted to do is to capture territory of Kosovo, and to open a new channel of communication, a new road from Serbia to Kosovo,” he said, adding that the ultimate aim was the partition of the country.

The Serbian government has denied involvement with the armed group, but held an official day of mourning for the three dead.

Vučić has sought to justify their actions by falsely claiming, in a meeting with the Russian ambassador to Belgrade, that the Kosovan government was carrying out ethnic cleansing.

Kosovo alleges that the group was led by Milan Radoičić, the deputy leader of the Belgrade-backed Serb List party, which dominates politics in the four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo.

Sveçla said his country’s intelligence service believed Radoičić, who has been sanctioned by the US and UK, had been wounded and was recovering in the main military hospital in Belgrade.

The claim could not be independently verified. Radoičić has not made a public statement but Serbia’s foreign minister, Ivica Dačić, claimed a video purporting to show Radoičić among the paramilitaries was a “fraud”.

More than 100,000 people have fled the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenia says.

It means that that almost the entire population of the ethnic Armenian enclave has left since Azerbaijan seized the region last week.

Azerbaijan has said it wants to reintegrate the area and treat its residents as equals, but an Armenian spokesman said this was just a "lie".

Nagorno-Karabakh - recognised as part of Azerbaijan - had been run by ethnic Armenians for three decades.

The mountainous region in the South Caucasus has been supported by Armenia - but also by its ally, Russia.

At least 200 ethnic Armenians and dozens of Azerbaijani soldiers were killed as Azerbaijan's army swept in. As part of a ceasefire deal, separatists have agreed to surrender their weapons.

The leader of the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh has said it will cease to exist in the new year.

Nazeli Baghdasaryan, a spokeswoman for Armenia's prime minister, said the number of refugees entering the country over the past week had reached 100,417, out of Nagorno-Karabakh's estimated population of 120,000.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) also stated that 100,000 people had fled, stating that many of those fleeing "are hungry, exhausted and need immediate assistance".

Artak Beglaryan, an Armenian former separatist official, said that "the last groups" of Nagorno-Karabakh residents were on their way to Armenia Saturday.

"At most a few hundred persons remain, most of whom are officials, emergency services employees, volunteers, some persons with special needs," he wrote on social media.

A populist pro-Moscow party led by former PM Robert Fico has won Slovakia's parliamentary elections, with almost all votes counted.

The Smer-SSD party had a clear lead with almost 24% of the vote despite exit polls suggesting victory by a liberal centrist party.

Left-wing Smer has pledged an immediate end to military support for Ukraine.

Mr Fico was forced to step down as PM following the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018.

He will be expected to start coalition talks on forming the next government.

The liberal Progressive Slovakia party, which exit polls suggested had won the election, polled at about 17%.

The pro-European Hlas party, which could decide who forms the next government, came third with 15%.

The party's leftist leader Peter Pellegrini - who is a former colleague of Mr Fico - kept his options open on future coalitions.

"The distribution of seats confirms Hlas as a party without which any normally functioning government coalition cannot be put together," Mr Pellegrini said.

Mr Fico may cooperate with Hlas, which split away from Smer in 2020, as well as the nationalist Slovak National Party that won 5%.

There will be seven parties in the new parliament from libertarians to far-right, which could make the coalition-building process long and complicated.